Saturday, January 14, 2012

It's only late afternoon, and we've already seen instances of pronounced hot and cold shooting in men's college basketball.

Florida State's Deividas Dulkys hit 8-of-10 on three-pointers in Seminoles' 90-57 shocker over No. 3 North Carolina. Dulkys, a senior guard, has made almost exactly one-third of his shots from behind the arc during his junior (.333) and senior (.321) years, making this afternoon's 8-of-10 performance extremely unusual. How unusual?

Using what is known as a binomial probability calculator, we can answer the question of how likely a long-term .333 three-point shooter is to make 8 (or more) out of 10 attempts from downtown. The answer is .003 or roughly 3-in-1,000.

Jaron Nash is a Texas Tech sophomore forward who plays about 10 minutes per game (Nash stats). He doesn't get to the free-throw line much, but when he has, he hasn't shot well. In fact, before making a pair from the stripe late in the Red Raiders' 67-54 loss to Texas A&M, Nash had missed 11 straight free throws.

It's not like Nash got flustered and missed several free throws in one game while in a funk. Rather, he compiled the streak gradually over five games.

Against Oral Roberts, he missed his last free-throw of the game, after two previous makes (box score, play-by-play).